


The Letter

by ryfkah



Series: Chava and Hodel [1]
Category: Fiddler on the Roof - Bock/Harnick/Stein
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-03
Updated: 2012-03-03
Packaged: 2017-11-01 01:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryfkah/pseuds/ryfkah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the very thing a person would do in a book.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Letter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opalmatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/gifts).



The letter took a roundabout route – to the lonely abandoned post office of Anatevka, through the hands of Fyedka's sister and so on across the border to Krakow, where it landed, dirty and torn, on Chava's new doorstep. It had been sent a week after the announcement that had scattered the Jews of Chava's home. News to and from Siberia traveled slowly.

The letter was funny and brave and hopeful, as all of Hodel's letters were, up until the very last paragraph. _Mama_ , it said, _I am afraid to write this, in case it invites the fate I want to prevent. But Mama, I am afraid this life is very hard, and I am afraid there is sickness, and I am afraid for Perchik._

For an hour or so, Chava sat with the letter, feeling overwhelmingly as if she had seen something forbidden. Hodel would never have written so to a younger sister. These were words their mother, and only their mother should see.

But their mother was on a boat to America now. Even if she sent the letter straight after, it would not be for some months that Golde could send even her prayers to Siberia to be with her daughter – let alone a letter, let alone anything else. 

So she went to Fyedka. “I know we have only just come to Krakow,” she told him, “but I think we must go to Kiev to get my brother out of prison.”

Fyedka's eyes sparked. “The romantic radical!” 

“I think he is languishing in prison and may die,” said Chava, whose imagination had been busy conjuring up images of tuberculosis and black plague. She gripped Fyedka's arm. “We must do something, or my sister will be a widow before she has ever been properly married! How could she bear it?” 

Fyedka tilted his head and looked up at her. “Well, Chava, I think it is very right of you to suggest it,” he said. “Certainly we must go help him. You know I am ambitious, after all, and perhaps he will give me a high position among the radicals when he remakes the world.”

Chava hugged Fyedka's arm tighter, unspeakably relieved – though really, she had known he would agree. It was after all the very thing a person would do in a book. 

Then she went to write to Hodel. It was first time writing a letter to her sister by herself, instead of calling out a cheerful message for Mama to put in at the end, or helping Bielke inscribe a greeting in her careful child's hand. _You mustn't worry, Hodel,_ she wrote. _I know your letter wasn't meant for me, but I will do all I can. I am a woman now, and you may rely on me._ Full sixteen, and a month married, she felt it very much true.


End file.
